Queens Man and Accomplice Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to Hizballah

U.S. Attorney’s Office
October 27, 2009

Southern District of New York(212) 637-2600

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Joseph M. Demarest, Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the FBI, announced the filing of an indictment yesterday charging Patrick Nayyar and Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland with attempting to provide material support to Hizballah, a designated foreign terrorist organization. The indictment also charges Nayyar with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.

On Sept. 24, 2009, Nayyar, a 46-year-old citizen of India who had been residing illegally in the United States, was arrested at his residence in Queens, N.Y., based on a criminal complaint charging him with possessing a firearm and ammunition as an illegal alien. Later that day, Nayyar was presented in Brooklyn federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joan Azrack.

According to the indictment filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court and the criminal complaint unsealed on Sept. 24, 2009:

Between July 2009 and September 2009, Nayyar and Mulholland agreed to provide weapons, ammunition, and vehicles to Hizballah, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization based in Lebanon. During a series of meetings with a confidential informant working with the FBI, who represented himself as working for Hizballah, Nayyar and Mulholland agreed to sell guns, ammunition, vehicles, bulletproof vests and night vision goggles to the confidential informant. During these meetings, Nayyar and Mulholland provided the confidential informant with a handgun, a box of ammunition and a pick-up truck, believing that the confidential informant would deliver the items to Hizballah in Lebanon.

The indictment filed yesterday charges Nayyar and Mulholland with four counts based on their agreement to provide weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Hizballah, and the provision of the various items to the confidential informant. In addition, Nayyar is charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition as an illegal alien.

Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland has not been arrested.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet. Nayyar is expected to be arraigned on the charges in the indictment later today.

Mr. Bharara praised the investigative work of the FBI.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brendan R. McGuire and Sean Buckley are in charge of the prosecution.

The charges contained in the complaint and the indictment are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.